Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop, Knoxville TN

Over the last three years, this small chain has expanded into Georgia and Texas. We’ve stopped by their original store twice for a couple of really good desserts.

Here’s a restaurant that I was sure my daughter would enjoy. Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop opened in Knoxville in November 2013 – our blogger friends from Oh, the Places We See… were there on their opening day – and they’ve been growing in a few southeastern cities with their direct-to-franchise model of differently-sized pies, a deep menu, and, if I may be blunt, a slightly-too-calculated “about” story that’s all about grandmothers, auld recipes, and rustic black-and-white family photos. But on the other hand, the praise that Meredith and Scott Layton have received at their locations (at present, five) is pretty genuine. People love the good work they do.

It was pretty much designed with my girlchild in mind, in other words. Then she went and had a mammoth dinner with her other family and just bit her lip while my son and I had small desserts instead, and told me that maybe next time things would work out right. So she missed out, but she really enjoyed looking at the possibilities here.

My son had some of a classic buttermilk pie here, and I, in the mood for chocolate, went with something very gooey along that line instead. It was good bottled soda weather, I think. I enjoyed an IBC root beer with mine, and while the boychild played with his, I finished mine. No, the girlchild was sure she didn’t want any, thanks. She told me gossip about her two weeks off, and I told her about the new home in Chattanooga that she’d be seeing for the first time in about the ninety minutes it takes to get back to Chattanooga.

We were on I-75 about fifteen minutes later when the girlchild grumbled “Heck, I should’ve got one of those pies.” And would you believe that she wasn’t with us when we came back for one a month later?

I had picked up my daughter at the end of June, and we were back in Knoxville the first weekend of August. As we’ll relate in the coming weeks, Marie and the boychild and I took an overnight trip to the Tri-Cities, and had planned for a late lunch at Knoxville’s S & S Cafeteria, which probably has some pretty good desserts. However, we didn’t know that the cafeteria closes midway through the day, and we arrived one minute too late.

We picked someplace else for lunch, and stopped back at Buttermilk Sky for Marie to see what the fuss was about. She had a chocolate meringue pie and really enjoyed it. I chose to turn into “Daddy Monster” and gave our son a goofball growl every time she gave him a bite of her dessert, pretending that all those bites were meant for monsters and not babies. Marie reminded me that I could get my own pie, and I probably should have.

Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop
5400 Kingston Pike
Knoxville, TN 37919

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